The 20 craziest Top Model moments ever
All good things must come an end. It was announced on Wednesday that after twenty-two ‘cycles’ of smizing, tooching and booching, America’s Next Top Model will drag its busted carcass off the catwalk once and for all at the end of the current series.
Oh how we’ll miss the reassuring predictability. By this point, you knew that if a contestant even mentioned their family or sob-story within the first five minutes of an episode they were, without question, going home. Never mind that a good ninety per cent of the wannabes were too tall/old/short/‘fiercely real’ to ever work as professional models, that’s not what we were there for. No. We were there for gems like these twenty memorable moments.
- Rebecca stacks it at panel (Cycle 4 – 2005)
Possibly reacting to Janice Dickinson calling her dog-walker picture ‘slutty’ (in a good way) poor Rebecca hits the deck due to a ‘pre-existing condition where she collapses’. Luckily for her, Dr. Tyra is on hand to dab at her temples with a tissue.
- Bree really likes granola bars (Cycle 5 – 2005)
‘Food is obviously important to Bree.’ Nik states the obvious as a stolen cereal bar prompts one the most bitter catfights in ANTM herstory. Much like Joey in Friends, Bree DOESN’T SHARE FOOD.
- Shandi shags an Italian model in a Jacuzzi (Cycle 2 – 2004)
Back when we still vaguely cared about the girls in the show, Shandi Sullivan was one of the most astonishing She’s All That makeovers ANTM ever did. But as April points out, when you throw ‘bananas’ (ahem!) at sex-starved girls, they can’t help but ‘peel them’ (ew). Shandi’s tearful confession to her boyfriend is one of the show’s best ever moments.
- Matthew and Will have a snog (Cycle 21 – 2014)
Boys were added into the mix in Cycle 20 but it wasn’t until last year that out-and-proud Will and somewhat-experimental Matt got it on. Sadly, the kiss was off-screen and Matt set the cause back about a decade by declaring he’d kissed the ‘prettiest girl in the house’. Thanks for that, Matt.
- Angelea is possibly a hooker (Cycle 17 – 2011)
Lord Lucan, the Loch Ness Monster, why Angelea vanished. The end of the All-Stars season is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. After the final catwalk in Greece, Angelea was crowned the winner of Cycle 17. However, in a hastily reshot finale, a clearly unimpressed Lisa and Allison were reassembled after Angelea was disqualified off-screen. Some time passed with fevered speculation before it emerged that the reason Angelea was shown the door was that she allegedly did some escorting work. Angelea denies she was ever a sex worker and is suing Tyra’s ass.
- Monique soils the bed (Cycle 7 – 2006)
Straight out of the Naomi Campbell school of modelling, demented Monique decides the best way to secure a bed is to pretend to wet her lettuce on Eugena’s duvet cover. Keep it classy, girl.
- Cassandra gets the chop (Cycle 5 – 2005)
There’s always tears at makeover time, but none more so than that poor provincial pageant girl with waist-length hair. By Cycle 5, poor Cassandra wasn’t to know she would inevitably get Mia Farrow’s crop and she really, really wasn’t happy about it. Brilliantly, post-chop, when Tyra asked for another trim, Cassandra took a stand and walked in the direction of hair extensions.
- Louise does her bit for Anglo-American relations (Cycle 18 – 2012)
In one of the most fist-gnawing panels ever, Essex girl Louise doesn’t take kindly to judge Kelly Cutrone telling her to ‘put some gratitude in your attitude’. Even perma-smiley Cat Deeley can’t get through to her and Louise storms out for good.
- Keith has a massive peen (Cycle 21 – 2014)
While filming the introduction shower sequence for Cycle 21, it becomes clear that should actual modelling not work out for former footballer, Keith, he could always carve out a career in specialist man-only movies.
- Celia unwisely questions Tyra (Cycle 12 – 2009)
Plucky Celia, already ten years too old to be a model, decides that before Tyra can give Courtney her marching orders, she must know that Talia wants to quit. Tyra is not here to be questioned and gives Celia the kind of look I reserve for charity canvassers on Oxford Street.
- Kim sparks Sarah’s sexual awakening (Cycle 5 – 2005)
Although there had been gay girls on ANTM before, Kim was by far the gobbiest. By episode two, she’d already snogged Sarah in a limo, kicking off the kind of bicuriosity you just don’t get in Boonville, Missouri.
- Unbeweaveable (Various)
Possibly even worse than the girl who gets the crop is the girl burdened with the dreaded weave. Victim of female genital mutilation Fatima (Cycle 10) declares it the most painful experience of her life; Brittany (Cycle 8) and Elina (Cycle 11) look like Ronald McDonald; Jael (Cycle 8) has a nine-hour weave put in only to be taken out minutes later. Perhaps worst of all was Cycle 16’s Molly who ended up looking like she had a mixture of Daryl Hannah’s Splash wig and Supernoodles glued to her scalp. Even she may be upstaged by poor Denzel’s BEARD WEAVE in Cycle 21. Fear the weave.
- Kathleen is very confused (Cycle 8 – 2007)
At the first photoshoot, each model was given a contentious issue to work with. Kathleen was meant to be anti-fur but, in a spectacular display of stupidity, fails to grasp that animals probably don’t enjoy becoming coats. Twiggy is unimpressed.
- Nadine Coyle requires subtitles (Cycle 18 – 2012)
Self-explanatory.
- Tyra calls out homophobia (Cycle 21 – 2014)
Denzel claims that he doesn’t want to lose the competition to Will, who is not a ‘real man’ because he wears heels. When this gets back to Tyra she reacts flawlessly, calling out misogyny, homophobia and comparing the struggle of gay men to racial segregation.
- Nigel has a stick up his ass (Cycle 7 – 2006)
Sometimes a joke just doesn’t land. We’ve all been there. When Caridee jokes that noted, sexified fashion photographer Nigel Barker needs to remove the rod from his rectum, he entirely fails to see the lols. Highly awkward. Caridee went on to win, though, so no hard feelings from Nige.
- Well-timed death photoshoots (Cycle 4 – 2005 and Cycle 8 – 2007)
Who’d have thought it? The very weeks Kahlen and Jael lose close friends to the grim reaper, Mr Jay cheerfully announces the girls will be playing corpses in their photoshoots. What coincidence! It’s almost like it was scripted. Strangely prescient in Jael’s case as her most recent TV appearance was on Intervention as her family attempted to save her from meth. Sadface. Methface.
- Nyle’s Boom Boom Boom (Cycle 22 – 2015)
In its dying days, ANTM has had a brief flurry of re-interest largely due to the first ever deaf contestant, ‘sexually fluid’ Nyle DiMarco. Nyle has had us all signing up for American Sign Language tutorials so we can ask, in all honesty, ‘you wanna be on top?’ Sadly, Nyle’s smile wasn’t enough to save the franchise from the axe.
- Tiffany versus Tyra (Cycle 4 – 2005)
You all thought this was gonna be at the top of the chart, right? Certainly Tyra’s ‘we were all rooting for you’ diatribe is probably the defining moment of ANTM’s twenty-two seasons. Oft imitated, never bettered.
- ‘Wonderful! Fabulous!’ (Cycle 6 – 2006)
My personal all-time favourite ANTM moment comes courtesy of the legendarily deluded ‘undiscovered supermodel’ Jade. Her Covergirl commercial, far from being Easy and Breezy was hilariously poor and ended in the most unladylike manner possible. Perfection. Jade: A true icon.
ANTM, RIP. At least we can console ourselves with a new series of Britain’s Next Top Model fronted by Abbey Crouch in the new year.
